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The word reprobate in the Bible basically means condemned, worthless or corrupt – a reprobate has no true knowledge of the things of God because his mind is corrupted and his view is worthless.

If you are a reprobate then the things you are going to hear today are going to reprove you. A true reprobate would either reject this lesson outright and turn it off or he would argue about it with disputations entirely contrary to the Bible which make perfect sense to him.

If you are not a reprobate but perhaps you know someone who is then this lesson is going to inform you to some extent about the underlying problems with a reprobate. They may not help you in dealing with him but they will help you to understand him.

A person who is a reprobate is:

Reprobate concerning the faith – 2 Tim 3:8 – he doesn’t know the truth and he certainly doesn’t believe it – what he knows of the Bible he uses to defend his error – a reprobate takes the same truth you see in the Bible and he twists it because his mind is corrupt – that’s what happened to the Pharisees – they tried arguing with Jesus about the scriptures but they got all messed up [Matt 22:29] – when you try to debate with a reprobate you end up losing most of the time because he is not true to the words of God – you need to follow Solomon’s advice [Prov 26:4; Prov 14:7] – you are wasting your time.

Reprobate concerning good works – Titus 1:16 – they have a defiled view of the good works that come forth from salvation – they criticize soul winning as proselytizing – they condemn preaching against sin as bigotry and hatred – they scorn Bible believing Christianity as a cult – and yet they profess to know God – their ideas of good works are limited to social programs and humanitarian aids which lost men can do without Christ – the good works they do may gain them favor with men but the Lord finds them abominable because they are disobedient – they deny the Lord.

Reprobate concerning God – Rom 1:28 – what they know and accept of God they have learned from religion and not from revelation [Lk 10:21-22] – if they have a god, their “higher power” is no higher than “god as we understand him” – their god may be an idol or a conjecture – but whatever he or she may believe, their god is not the God of the Bible – they hate the God of the Bible and they don’t want anything to do with him – they condemn him, they accuse him of being a religious concept, they relegate him to someone like Santa Claus, and they make him out as either a God of hate with whom they have no desire to be or a God of love with whom everyone will spend eternity regardless of who they are or what they have done.

Reprobate concerning sin – Rom 1:28-32 – they believe that the sins they commit are acceptable and pleasurable – they do not view them as sins, at all – they see absolutely nothing wrong with the sins they commit or the sins their friends commit – they just condemn people who do see something wrong with their sins – to a reprobate, the people who are wrong are the people who are right – they will make any excuse necessary to continue in their sin and they use any means available to legalize and protect their sins.

Reprobate concerning salvation – 2 Cor 13:5 – they are usually not concerned with life after death – yet if they are at all interested in some kind of salvation they do not accept the simplicity of salvation in Jesus Christ [2 Cor 11:3] – they either have a religion of works where they do enough good in their own minds to justify themselves before God or a religion that is a westernized version of some eastern religion whereby they are justified – in either case they are lost and without hope in the world.

Conclusion: a person who is reprobate must rightly believe the truth of God’s words, reject good works as a means of salvation, trust the God of the Bible and his Son Jesus Christ, repent of his sin and receive the Lord Jesus Christ as his Saviour – most reprobates will not do this – they can but most of them won’t – if you are a reprobate, I pray that you will turn from your sin and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ – if you aren’t a reprobate but you know one, I pray that this message helps you to understand why he is so difficult to deal with – debating and arguing with him won’t bring him around – only acknowledging and believing the truth can do that [2 Tim 2:24-26; Jn 8:32] – and very few reprobates will acknowledge and believe the truth after following a lie for so long.